Much
has been written recently about the rise of the far right and its growing
impact on mainstream politics. While the campaign and election of Trump remains
the most covered event, the strong performance of the Freedom Party in Austria,
the Front National in France, the Lega in Italy and the victory of Brexit in
the UK amongst others have made such discussions ubiquitous. Countless texts
focus on the ways in which the discourse of parties and movements once
considered toxic have evolved or been adapted.

While
the concepts of ‘mainstream’ and ‘mainstreaming’ have commonly been invoked, their
definition has been elusive, or rather avoided by scholars and experts on the
topic – partly due to the fact that defining the mainstream is itself a challenge.
Defining the mainstream is itself a challenge.

Therefore,
we believe that it is essential to move beyond electoral politics to understand
the way the far right is being mainstreamed. To do so, a few ‘common sense’
tropes must be challenged:

The mainstreaming of the far right is not new.

Despite the pledge across the west
that Nazism and fascism would never be allowed to happen again, we have
witnessed the resurgence of far right parties, movements and ideas and their
absorption into the mainstream ever since and up to this day. Flirting with
anti-immigration or openly racist rhetoric is not new, and mainstream
politicians have done so for decades.

The mainstream’s meaning and position is constructed, contingent
and fluid.

It is
also dependent on what we contrast as ‘extreme’, which is just as contingent
and fluid. What is mainstream or extreme at one point in time does not remain
so. Ideas such as racism, sexism and homophobia, once acceptable in the
mainstream, can be and were rejected, associated with the past and with
extremism. Yet, such movements or ideas (together with the structures or
institutions which underpin them) may not disappear, may adapt and change.
Also, a backlash and revival may always occur.

Far-right parties also move both ways.

On the one hand, they can become more
mainstream through their own choices and actions, usually through a discursive
shift towards less overtly racist and authoritarian politics, as well as an expansion
of their programmes away from anti-immigration as a single issue. They can also
be disentangled from the mainstream and rendered ‘extreme’ as the mainstream
changes.

On the other hand, their
position can be influenced by the actions (or inaction) of other parties and
political actors (including the media). Providing a media platform or engaging in ideological,
political or discursive alliances and cooperation has played a major role in
mainstreaming far right parties. Providing a media
platform or engaging in ideological, political or discursive alliances and
cooperation has played a major role in mainstreaming far right parties.

The mainstream is not essentially good.

The mainstream can move
both ways, depending on circumstances. Mainstream parties can move towards more
progressive politics, as much as they can move towards reaction when under real
or perceived pressure from far-right parties or public opinion for example.

Progress is not unidirectional or inevitable.

A common narrative sees history and
society moving forward in a constant,
unidirectional trajectory towards more freedom (in a liberal/capitalist sense)
and equality of opportunity (based on systemic inequalities which remain
unaddressed), overcoming injustices such as colonialism and slavery. However,
this narrative fails to address the continuity of racism, sexism and
homophobia, or the possibility of a backlash by reactionary forces.

The most notable case is
that of the ‘post-racial’ where racism, supposedly overcome,
has been predicated on individual achievements by persons of colour,
representing racism in terms of the bad old days of Nazism. This has served to
legitimise what we term ‘liberal racism’ and Islamophobia in particular, that
is, attacks on Islam and Muslims in the name of liberal values as opposed to
race. This can be seen most recently in Boris Johnson’s attack on the burqa or in the banning of religious symbols across Europe targeted directly at
Islam in an unmistakably racist manner. Liberal
racism can be seen most recently in Boris Johnson’s attack… targeted directly
at Islam in an unmistakably racist manner.

Party politics and discourse can move together but they do
not have to, or not at the same time.

Parties can move left or right faster or slower than public
discourse does, putting them at odds with the political discussion and thus
alienating or marginalising them.

Various levels of
discourse must also be accounted for. Does elite discourse (media, academics
and experts and politicians) reflect wider public discourse at the local or
individual level? If these move separately, then which influences which and
how? Are parties following public opinion or leading it?

The far-right or its
(mis)perception may also pressure or influence the mainstream, based on a
skewed account of its support, so much so that the mainstream may appropriate
their ideas as they fear a loss in votes. The very idea of an EU referendum in
the UK for example was accelerated by the constructed threat of UKIP which sent
into panic mode both Labour and the Conservatives, and in turn fed the hype,
despite the far-right party gathering at most 7% of the registered vote in all
its history. The very idea of an EU referendum in
the UK for example was accelerated by the constructed threat of UKIP which sent
into panic mode both Labour and the Conservatives.

There is no such thing as public opinion.

In recent years, particularly through
what has been termed populist hype, the mainstreaming of racism and the
far-right has often been explained and legitimised in terms ‘public opinion’
and attributed to ‘the people’.Did the British ‘people’ want a
referendum on the EU or were they told they wanted it? Did all Trump voters
vote for a white supremacist leadership or did they simply vote for the party
they had always voted for? What happens when non-voters are taken into account? Does public opinion shape politics
from scratch or do politicians and the media shape public opinion?

These are issues which
would require far more space than is given to us here to discuss, but some
leads can be explored briefly.As Maxwell McCoombs noted ‘most of the issues and
concerns that engage our attention are not amenable to direct personal
experience’, building on Walter Lippman’s belief that ‘the world that we have
to deal with politically is out of reach, out of sight, out of mind’. This
means that our knowledge of the world beyond our very limited direct experience
has to be mediated, and, while mediation can come from a number of sources
(family, friends, work etc), much of our political knowledge these days is
acquired through the media, and the way politics is discussed within it, with
certain actors having more powerful voices than others. This does not mean that
the media or politicians will tell you what to think, but simply that they will
tell you what to think about.

This does not mean that
the media or politicians will tell you what to think, but that they will tell you
what to think about. This is key when looking at the contemporary mainstreaming
of the far right as much of it has been based on the simplistic idea that
tougher measures on immigration for example are ‘what the people want’ or that
Islam is not compatible ‘according to a majority of the (add any given
nationality) people’. The data used to generate public discourse, whether
through election results or opinion polls, is often based on selective
interpretation, and frequently gives the impression
that it is the people as a sovereign voice that is driving the mainstreaming
process, rather than
the elite through their misguided perception or inability to respond to current
political crises.

Therefore, key to our
approach is a particular focus here on discourse, moving away from electoral
politics qua politics, towards a more
holistic approach. To implement a comprehensive strategy, it is essential to
separate electoral and ideological/discursive successes when talking about the
mainstreaming of the far right and racism more generally. The fate of a
political party or movement in terms of election is irrelevant if their ideas become
front and centre. The fate of a political party or
movement in terms of election is irrelevant if their ideas become front and
centre.

This
is something the far right has managed to turn to its advantage, in part
through a radical transformation of its strategy initiated in intellectual
circles in the 60s and 70s. Building on and perverting the theories of Antonio
Gramsci on hegemony, far right intellectuals in France in particular devised
their own way out of their post-war oblivion. They claimed that their revival
would be based on the simple hegemonic principle that: cultural power must
precede political power. It was therefore not surprising to see Steve Bannon
cite these intellectuals as an inspiration, or to find that the Alt-Right
directly borrowed from them.

While
the far right itself remained at first on the margins, its ideas began to seep
into the mainstream as they perfected their strategy and gained increased
impact in the media and on public discourse in the 90s and 2000s. The second
half of 2010s seems to have heralded a new stage in this mainstreaming whereby
the far right’s ideas have become so normalised that their presence in government
is no longer a surprise, and is in fact increasingly common, as exemplified by
the Austrian and Italian cases.

In
this context, while day-to-day, localised anti-racist action remains as
essential as ever, we have reached a point where a broader response must be
developed on the left. It is essential to aim beyond the far right itself and
tackle the appeal to and activation of racism by and within the mainstream, as
well as the roots of the continual and pervasive presence of racism in our
societies, their structures and institutions, relying on critical and
historical approaches.

About the authors

Aurelien Mondon is Senior Lecturer in Politics at Bath University. Working
with Aaron Winter, his work looks at the relationship between the far right and
the mainstream, with a particular focus on racism. Their most recent article is
'Articulations of Islamophobia: from the extreme to the mainstream?' in Ethnic
and Racial Studies (2017).

Aaron Winter is Senior Lecturer in Criminology at University of East
London. Together with Aurelien Mondon he is currently working on the book Reactionary Democracy: populism, racism, the
far right and 'the people'.

This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.
If you have any queries about republishing please contact us.
Please check individual images for licensing details.

Recent comments

openDemocracy is an independent, non-profit global media outlet, covering world affairs, ideas and culture, which seeks to challenge power and encourage democratic debate across the world. We publish high-quality investigative reporting and analysis; we train and mentor journalists and wider civil society; we publish in Russian, Arabic, Spanish and Portuguese and English.